Pronouns

« I traded off they/them/their pronouns for he/him/his pronouns. I made this switch because I realized just how much I truly enjoy being acknowledged as a guy. » — Zayden, 26

elle. A neutral pronoun that can be easily said out loud. This is non-standard, but one of the most common of these. It's used by nonbinary people in Chile.

elli. A neutral pronoun that can be said out loud. It's uncommonly used.

ellu. A neutral pronoun that can be said out loud. It's uncommonly used.

ellx. A neutral pronoun that can't be said out loud. This non-standard, but one of the more common of these. Note that, unlike English coinages such as "princex," which is only for people of color, a neutral x in Spanish is not only for people of color. "Ellx" can be used by white people as well.

ol. A neutral pronoun. Non-standard and uncommon. The plural would be olles. This would go with the non-standard definite article that is also ol.

Swedish neutral pronouns

Visual illustration of the two gendered personal pronouns in Swedish, hon ("she") and han ("he"), alongside the gender-neutral hen.

In 2014, the Swedish language (Svenska) officially added a new gender-neutral pronoun, hen, which is popular among Swedish-speaking nonbinary people.

de, dem (dom), deras.

den, den, dens (dess). Means 'it'. This isn't usually used for humans. Traditionally, the word den has been used as a gender neutral pronoun and remains widely used today. However, depending on the context, the word den can also mean "it," leaving it unsatisfactory as a gender neutral pronoun for many who do not wish to be seen as like an inanimate object.

hen, hen (henom), hens (henoms). This neutral pronoun was first proposed in 1966. Since the 1960s, the person pronoun hen has become increasingly popular. It was proposed independently in 1994, based on the Finnish neutral pronoun hän. It came to be used in magazines and books during the 2000s and 2010s. In 2014, it was officially added to the language. In 2015, it will be added for the first time to Svenska Akademiens Ordlista (the Swedish equivalent to France's Dictionnaire de l'Académie française). It usage, however, remains somewhat controversial and is vigorously opposed by some. Hen is used for people whose gender is not known, as well as for nonbinary people who ask to be called by this pronoun. It's not meant to replace the gendered pronouns hon ("she") and han ("he"), but to exist together with them. For more information, see the Wikipedia entry on hen.

Standard gender neutral / third gender personal pronoun: hen

Possessive form of hen: hens

Object form of hen: henom. The object form of hen is sometimes just hen. It is very individual.

West Frisian neutral pronouns

Some neutral pronouns in West Frisian language (Frysk) include:

je, jin, jins. These pronouns do exist as indefinite pronouns, though their use for referring to a specific person isn't very common.

See also

• Gender neutral language
• Celebrity pronoun project

External Links

• MIT’s Ally Toolkit: Gender Neutral Pronoun Usage (PDF)
• University of Minnesota's guide to Nonbinary gender pronouns
• Gender Neutal Pronoun Blog has a good list of pronouns, both traditional and invented.
• Gender Neutral Pronoun FAQ. This was the biggest resource on gender-neutral pronouns. Tells much about history. Includes a comprehensive list of pronouns. No longer updated.
• Failedslacker's Pronoun Dressing Room. Choose a set of pronouns, and this page will show you how those pronouns look in action, by automatically putting them into sample texts from literature. Use this tool to test pronouns that you like, to see how they look in use.
• Practice With Pronouns. A game that lets you practice putting pronouns into different parts of sample sentences, so that you can get used to the grammar.
• Pronoun Island. Anyone can put in any pronouns they can imagine, and it makes a page that shows how to use them in a sentence, which a person can link to in order to show these particular usage examples to other people.